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Spider-Man 3

Overview

Do whatever a spider can

Based on the smash-hit blockbuster movie, Spider-Man 3 allows players to experience the actions of heroic red-suited Spider-Man and, for the first time ever, his darker, more mysterious black-suited persona.

Set in a larger, dynamic, free-roaming New York City, the game gives players the freedom to choose their own gameplay experience through multiple movie-based and original storylines, fully integrated city missions and performance rewards including improved speed, combat manoeuvres and agility.

Players draw upon Spider-Man's completely revamped combat abilities as they protect the city and defeat nemeses using expanded aerial fighting, finishing moves and dynamic webbing during missions and epic boss battles.

For the first time ever, control the legendary black suit, which magnifies Spider-Man's strength, agility and durability. Punish your enemies with explosive new attacks and incredible upgrades, including fearsome room-clearers.

All this power comes with a price, though, as players will find the black suit harder and harder to control. Will you be strong enough to make a heroic choice before your quest for vengeance turns the city against you?

Experience multi-stage, dynamic boss battles against the headlining villains from the movie as well as a host of legendary comic book foes who all take advantage of their environments, their minions, and the large-scale destruction that their superpowers cause in trying to defeat Spider-Man.

Go anywhere at any time in a larger, dynamic, free-roaming New York City and get involved in a series of thrilling missions whenever you want.

Three criminal gangs and a variety of Super Villains will be competing for your attention, creating havoc in New York. Will you be able to save everyone?

Redesigned from scratch, the all-new combat system lets you perform suit-specific attacks and combo chains to defeat enemies and complete challenges and missions

Preview

Back in black

A new costume, a new attitude and some brand new enemies - it's Spider-Man 3 on PlayStation 2.

Nearly everyone has a dark side. Even moral, upstanding superheroes like Peter Parker, otherwise known as the spectacular Spider-Man. Of course, having the proportionate strength and agility of a spider means that when Peter's dark side comes out, things can turn nasty...

Spins a web...Following the plot of the blockbuster movie, Spider-Man 3 sees Peter's life being taken over by a mysterious entity from outer space that bonds symbiotically with his costume. The new black costume enhances all of Spider-Man's powers, meaning he can jump higher, punch harder and swing faster than he ever could before.

Good thing too, as it looks like Peter's going to need all the help he can get to keep the city safe as a whole host of new villains are in town, and hoping to cause trouble for your friendly neighbourhood wall-crawler. Chief amongst these are the New Goblin - Peter's best friend Harry Osborne reborn as a sky-surfing, bomb throwing maniac, and the Sandman - a supervillain made entirely of sand.

Any size...Of course, being Spider-Man you can do whatever a spider can, including shooting webs, swinging from skyscrapers, avoiding danger with your Spider-Sense and clinging to walls in a gravity-defying fashion. You can even climb out of bathtubs with ease, something real spiders have yet to master. The black costume naturally enhances all of these powers, but the longer you stay in it, the more control it will have over you. Every punch you throw in the black suit increases your Rage, and eventually you will have to take it off via a quick mini-game, or the suit will overwhelm Peter and cause him to pass out. The more times you wear the suit, the harder the mini-game becomes, a nice nod to the insidious nature of the symbiote in the comics and films.

Catches thieves...The game provides you with a great tutorial mode that drops you right into the action, narrated with a knowing wit by cult-movie legend Bruce Campbell. Once you know your way around a web-line, it's time to take your arachnid hero into the concrete jungle that is New York City and fight some crime. Choosing a mission is a simple case of picking one of the icons on your 3D map, swinging your way over there, finding the mission marker, and getting ready for some arachnid action. These missions range from photographing giant lizards in Central Park, to picking up your girlfriend Mary-Jane from work, right up to battling the huge supervillains from the movie.

Just like flies...Many of the epic battles you'll face feature button-pressing mini-games similar to the ones found in God of War 2 and Resident Evil 4 on PlayStation 2. These do a great job of spicing up some of the cutscenes and also letting you pull off some suitably spectacular spider-moves during the more epic boss battles. Of course, you're still able to pull off spectacular moves yourself thanks to a combat system that allows you to mix up punches and kicks with Spidey's trademark webs and acrobatic vaults. And that's not all.

Look out! Here comes the Spider-Man.As you swing about the city completing missions and performing combos, you gain experience. Once your experience bar is completely full you earn a Hero Point which you can use to buy new abilities for Spider-Man, including the ability to swing enemies round your head, fire webbing like a machine gun and even slow down time.

Spidey himself looks as good as a superhero of his stature should, particularly in his swanky new black threads, and the producers have got the actors from the movie to reprise their roles, meaning that Tobey Maguire, James Franco, Topher Grace and Thomas Haden-Church all appear. New York is also much bigger than ever before, a massive free-roaming world, that it's up to you to patrol, all of which adds up to the feeling that you're inside the movie.

All in all, being Spider-Man makes for a great videogame experience. Swinging around New York, crawling up walls, dangling from webs and punishing bad guys are all tremendously entertaining, and there's definitely enough here to keep you going for a long time, with 42 missions and 10 expansive storylines to draw you in and web you up. This is one spider you're definitely going to want in the house.